User blog:Salnax/New Ideas
I'm going to be having another go at this, at least for a while. The following is what I envision for the 8th generation hardware. Rough Timeline *'2011' - The Game Boy 3DS is launched at the end of the year, about 8 months later than OTL's 3DS. *'2012' - The Stream and Eclipse launch in November, similar to when the Wii U did OTL. These consoles are closer to the the Wii U than the Xbox One in terms of power. *'2013' - Though things seem bright on the surface, it is clear to the higher ups at Nintendo and Sega that something is going wrong. The Game Boy 3DS is selling only about half as well as the Game Boy Nitro did. The rise of PC gaming in several markets, along with the advancing power of PC's, made some multiplatform games ported to Stream and Eclipse look like they were a generation behind despite being newly released hardware. The relatively small and simple Revolution series games could not be replicated when mobile devices could offer something similar for a far lower price. This is all especially bad news because the two companies were planning on a six year cyckle for their consoles. *'2014' - By this point, even many consumers were noticing the problems being faced by Nintendo and Sega. *'2015' - Both Sega and Nintendo are preparing significant actions. Each company would release a new "Slim" style system around this time, and development would be underway for more new hardware. *'2016' - Sega releases a version of the Eclipse with notably improved hardware, similar to the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. They hope to turn a lot of their attention to this system over the next couple of years, turning the "Slim" Eclipse into a budget model of sorts. *'2017' - Nintendo reveals the Switch (possibly under a different name) and releases it in the last quarter of the year. My reasoning is based on the problems real life consoles have faced in the past few years. In 2010, the big three consoles sold about 44 million contemporary consoles combined in 2009 and then again in 2010, compared to 27 million consoles in 2016 and either 28 or 41 million in 2017, depending on whether you include both the Wii U and the Switch in 2018. I find it relatively likely that Nintendo would make something akin to the Switch in Ohga Shrugs, albeit at a slightly later date. Although it would mean dropping out of the race for a strong console, like they did IOTL for the Wii, they would clearly be able to see how drastically the handheld market was waning. Although losing third party support would be considered a major risk, they'd probably be expecting enough to either transition from either the Game Boy 3DS or Stream. As for Sega, their strategies earlier in Ohga Shrugs are roughly comparable to those used by Sony and Microsoft IOTL. Releasing a half-gen leap would also be reminiscent of what they did with the Genesis add-ons. Nintendo First Party Titles *'2014' - Donkey Kong Country, Mario Kart, Stream Sports, and Super Smash Bros for Stream. Friends Life (Tomodachi), Super Smash Bros, and Pokemon remakes for Game Boy. *'2015' - Mario Party, Splatoon, Yoshi's Woolly World, and Pikmin 4 are released for the Stream. **''Pikmin 4'' is made possible due to the Stream's interface making a game like Super Mario Maker unfeasible. **Game Boy 3DS development slows down notably at this time, especially for big sellers, though plenty of games are still made. *'2016' - Paper Mario and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is released for the Stream. *'2017' - The last major Stream games include Arms and a new Mario Party. The Switch launches with Super Mario Odyssey, a major new Bomberman title, and a port of Breath of the Wild. *'2018' - Switch games include Sea of Thieves, an enhanced version of Mario Kart: Slipstream, Splatoon 2, Kirby: Star Allies, Super Mario Party, and Pokemon: Let's Go. *'2019' - Planned releases include Super Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, Yoshi, Fire Emblem Category:Blog posts